Style Your Stack Design: After Action 2024

The After Action Workshop, a 5-week workshop, was designed to offer Democratic election workers a chance to learn about self-care and sort out feelings after the election.

Kudos from Kelly Burton of After Action 2024

“Nan is the real deal and I would hire her again in a second. Not only did she build a beautiful Substack that brought our entire project to life, she did it with joy, humor, and purpose - all of which made her wonderful to work with, even under stressful deadlines.

Her design eye is on point, her Substack skills are top-notch, and she does it all with responsiveness, professionalism, and friendliness that makes the entire experience with her a delight. I wish I had a Nan in every aspect of my life! If you are looking to have a lovely experience building a beautiful Substack, hire Nan. It will be the best decision you make.”

Kelly found me through a Substack Writers Work chat. She was looking for help in setting up a stack from the bottom up. She wanted it all, the wordmark, logo, welcome page, and site design. She also needed a virtual consultant. Someone who knew the Substack ropes and could partner with her in achieving her aims. We Zoomed, and Kelly asked a ton of questions about the capability of Substack to provide what she was looking for in a platform. I was able to provide those answers and she hired me immediately to start the set-up, brainstorm, and design After Actions’s visual assets.

Kelly Burton of Both/And Leadership is unlike any person I’ve ever met. She’s the most upbeat, compassionate, and guileless human around. She’s excited, committed, real and fun! We’ve worked as colleagues on this project since September. She and other colleagues designed a workshop to address the needs of campaign professionals AFTER an election. At that point, all we knew was that there would be a result of the election. And we, and everyone else involved in the project was cautiously optimistic bordering on a little cocky about the outcome we wanted to see. Honestly, I was the one who was cocky.

On Election night, Kelly went from feeling cautiously optimistic to “nauseously optimistic.” And then we knew. The job and the workshop took on even more meaning for me than before.

Because now, there was an extra reason for wanting to give back to this marvelous group of people who definitely needed some nurturing and witnessing. They needed to be supported in recovering from the work of trying to change the tone of the nation. I can’t imagine doing that kind of work, but I was thrilled to be contributing to a project that was a way to say to thank you, I see you, and I appreciate your efforts.

Kelly needed to decide whether to make the Substack private or not. We ultimately went with private because the participants were being sponsored by their campaign employers, so it wasn’t an open-to-the-public resource, at least in this iteration, the pilot, as a hopefully regular destination for election workers. Substack is fully functional when private, too.

The Work

Kelly asked me to design the assets, the wordmark, logo/icon, welcome page image, and banner. She offered me some ideas, based on the work of a friend of hers who’s a terrific designer. I integrated some of his work, and injected my own sensibility into the creation of the visual aspects of the project. As the weeks have gone on, I’ve also designed some branded images to support the message of the After Action Workshop.

First, the wordmark, which also serves as the email banner in this case:

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The logo/icon is simpler (as it should be) reminds me of the world in it’s orbiness, and is green, the color we need to keep using as a nod to climate change and saving the planet…if it isn’t already too late.

The Welcome page image:

And some extra graphics that were necessary to support the curriculum:

And an image for the Resources page:

This gig was the greatest, and I’m hoping there’ll be more down the road so I get to work with Kelly again. Finding great creative partners is hard sometimes, and when I find a gem, I never want to let them go. Kelly is a gem!

If you need some inspiration, some great graphics that pop, and more creative ideas about looking your best, get in touch with me!

Take some time, look around, and if you’re asking “What’s my next step?” maybe the thing to do is make an appointment to talk with me about styling your stack, or just go for it, and sign up for Style My Stack, and I’ll get you started!